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Tuesday, November 1, 2011

INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR, JASS RICHARDS

INTERVIEW WITH JASS RICHARDS, AUTHOR OF "THIS WILL
NOT LOOK GOOD ON MY RESUME"

Hi Jass, thank you for doing an interview with Great Minds. The first
question I wanted to ask you is, what exactly is a sit-down comic? I saw that on
your bio on your site and it interested me.

Oh that was just a play
on ‘stand-up comic’. When I’m writing, I’m stretched out on a couch. So actually
I guess I’m not even a sit-down comic, I’m a lying-down comic.

You
were once a stand up comic correct? Can you tell us more about this stint in
your career?

Um, it was very brief? I really enjoyed it though, I
love being in front of a crowd hamming it up, but the nearest club is now a
three-hour drive one way from where I live, so to make that drive for a
five-minute spot, for years until I ‘graduate’ to a ten-minute spot, to, maybe,
eventually, a half hour show…I decided to just lie down instead.

Also, I
learned that stand-ups have to be actors. It’s genuinely funny to you the first
few times you perform your act, but after the twentieth time, you really have to
put on a performance – and that’s another reason I quit. I’m not a good actor
and have no desire to do the work to become one. I’d rather just lie
down.

I also learned you really have to find your audience. I really
really bombed at a Yuk-Yuks. If you watch the video (which I did only once) you
can actually see the moment where I was thinking ‘Should I just walk off the
stage now and put an end to my misery or should I suck it up and finish?’ And I
was invited back to a club in the Beaches. They got me.

That said, my
best moment was at that Yuk Yuks – a young black guy almost fell off his stool
laughing at my Donovan Bailey joke.

Ironically enough, my worst moment
was at what was apparently a black club – I’m not black. Don’t know why they
even let me in the door. But they made me wait and wait and wait…after one
point, it became clear they weren’t going to let me go on, but I was determined
by then to stay until they did – so I could tell my Donovan Bailey joke. A
middle-aged white woman telling a joke about a black athlete in a black club
full of pretty young things – who could resist that
opportunity?

How would you best describe your comedic
style?

Dry. Silly (when my characters get stoned). And usually
serious. I mean in a George Carlin way. My comedy is social commentary wrapped
in a snicker.

So far all your writing has been comedy based correct?
Yes. Have you ever thought about doing any more serious writing in the
future?

No. It is serious. And without the comedy, it’d be
unbearable. It’d be just a rant.

If you had to choose just one of your
books which one would be your best according to you and why?

I like
The Road Trip Dialogues. It was fun to write. A buddy road trip, doing silly
shit, and changing the world. This Will Not Look Good on My Resume is good, I
think, but writing it was – there was more anger I had to keep getting a grip
on.

Tell us more about obtaining a Masters in Philosophy and what
affect it has had if any on your writing.

Well I’m not getting a
Ph.D. any time soon. I liked the Critical Thinking course, and the applied
ethics courses (environmental ethics, bioethics, moral issues) – both should be
mandatory for every human being. Seriously. It’s about time the U.S. and Canada
get in step with Europe and have philosophy in the high schools.

Didn’t
like the Epistemology, Metaphysics, Formal Logic, much.

What does
your family think of your writing?

They don’t know. And you’re not
going to tell them.

Where do you see yourself in the next 10 years as
far as your writing career is concerned?

I hope to have an
enthusiastic following. Fame and fortune would be nice. No, scratch that.
Fortune would be nice. I think I could do without the fame.

What is
your next creation and when can we expect it to be out?

The Blasphemy
Tour picks up where The Road Trip Dialogues ends.

Here’s the blurb for
The Road Trip Dialogues: Rev and Dylan are intelligent, sensitive, idealistic,
enthusiastic, and – utter failures. When they reconnect twenty years after
teacher’s college, Rev is en route to Montreal to see the fireworks festival.
(Something with great social and political import.) (Oh shut up. I tried. For
twenty years. So to hell with it.) Dylan goes along for the ride. (Typical.)
They get stoned and change the world. Not necessarily in that order.

I
won’t spoil it but Rev and Dylan, two Canadian atheists, end up getting an offer
for a cross-country tour of Bible colleges in the States. The Blasphemy Tour is
about the tour. And oh gawd what blasphemies they commit… It’s good for the
soul. Seriously.

It will be available, like Road Trip, at Smashwords,
Amazon, etc. (ebook and print)

Do you have any advice you'd like
to share with other authors?

At least once in your life, laugh so
hard you snort root beer out your nose.